


The Man in the Wolf Mask

by azri



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Costume Parties & Masquerades, Dalish Origin, F/M, Orlesian Politics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-19 07:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3600885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azri/pseuds/azri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"“Think of the court as a forest", He had said then - Before Halamshiral. Before everything. </p>
<p>"Walk through it as you would when you hunt. Look for trails, and leave none yourself. Know what you seek, and what seeks you. You are a hunter, and yet you are also the hunted” </p>
<p>After Corypheus's defeat, Skyhold hosts a masquerade ball where for the first time elves mingle with humans as nobility. Amongst this, an Inquisitor still trying to come to terms with Solas's departure crosses path with a man wearing the mask of the wolf god of betrayal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Before, the masquerade balls had been bearable only because _he_ was there.

Halamshiral was her first, and Ellana could still remember how much it scared her in the weeks leading to it- tongue twisting in knots and feet tumbling against each other as Josephine tried valiantly to pour as much Orlesian grace and tact as she could into a head filled with tree branches and ancient tomes. As the days passed, the Ambassador’s smiles were fraying at the edges - and Ellana suspected, her slippers too, given how many times she had stepped on them. 

And then he slipped in, bare feet padding soundlessly on the stone floors, dipping his head towards Josephine before taking Ellana’s own hand in his – _warm, familiar, safe_ – like so many times before. Josephine had waved them away when he asked for a moment with the Inquisitor, perhaps glad to be given reprieve for her aching feet.

He took her, out of all places, to the small grove behind Skyhold – where the fortress’s strange magic had warmed the soil and allowed a small ring of trees to flourish. Before she could comment on the curious setting, he raised the hand that he had been holding, positioned his other hand on the small of her back, and then started to hum. 

The melody was vaguely familiar, an echo of the music that Josephine had the musicians play for their lessons so far – only it was much subtler, sadder, in a way. Whatever it was, the haunting melody seemed to compliment the rustling of leaves around them, and Ellana found herself closing her eyes as she moved with him – Bare feet on grass and his hand on hers and the trees around them swaying, swaying. When she opened them again, his humming was but a lingering vibration between their bodies as their bodies pressed close together for the final dip of the dance. 

“How did you do that?” 

“It was not my doing, but yours” He smiled, steadying her with a sure hand as they righted themselves to a standing position “You know all of the steps already, vhenan. It was only a matter of making you comfortable with where you are”

She had scrunched up her face then, and his smile softened, hands moving to frame her face gently. Her own hand followed his all to readily, fingers tangled against one another as the last thrums of their dance lingered between them.

“Think of the ball as a forest" He had said "And move through it as you would when you hunt. Look for trails, and leave none yourself. Know what you seek, and what seeks you. You are a hunter, and yet you are also the hunted” 

“And you? Will you be there too?” 

He was silent for a long time, her hands tightening imperceptibly around his before something too, shifted in his eyes. 

“I will find you” He had replied simply, and that was that. 

So to Halamshiral she went, where she weaved through the court like she hunts through trees and brambles, stalked her prey and danced with it when it hunted her in turn, acknowledging a fellow hunter in the leaf-eared ambassador that she later raised into power. And at the end, he _did_ find her, when her hunt was coming to a close and she was again just Ellana – lost in a forest of Shem masks and lies. Again she took his hand, and closed her eyes as she let herself be enveloped in a familiar dance. She was safe, she was _found_. 

Afterwards, there were other balls, other courts and faceless dances to attend to in the name of the Inquisition. Ellana had always let herself loose in those glittering forests, only for him to find her in the end. It became their ritual, of sorts, and she remembers thinking to herself that perhaps all these masquerades were not so dreadful afterall, if she could always have him with her. 

And now the ball shifts and swirls around her – Silk and gold and Orlesian perfumes, and Ellana could already feel the forest forming around her, crystal leaves and stone branches, could feel the hunt begin.

Only this time, he will not be there to find her.


	2. Chapter 2

Ellana was surprised at how little of Skyhold she sees in the ball. This morning it had been her home, before Josephine and Vivienne had descended upon it and turned the familiar arches and stones of the ancient fortress into something else – something hauntingly familiar. Somewhere inside her, she knows that a ball is always going to be its own forest, no matter where it’s held. Like a piece of the fade that you step into just for one night, until you wake up from it – warm and giddy from the the music and wine and the intrigue of it all. 

_Or until someone wakes you up._

Ellana steps into the dance floor without even realizing she had done so, her slippered feet moving more out of memory than anything else. She lets unnamed hands guide her through the steps, feeling nothing but the rustle of silk against her own skin. Water-green and silver, like veilfire. _Only the finest for the Inquisitor_ , Josephine had said of the dress, knowing the hue to be the exact same as the flames Ellana preferred to light her quarters. 

And her friend didn’t stop there. Her mask was of the finest Antivan silverwork, tipped with two delicate, spiraling horns – As proud and regal as Ghilan’nain’s own. She remembered telling Josephine of her lost Vallaslin, the story of how the mother of Halla guided her people and how she hoped to guide the Inquisition as the goddess did. It was a fleeting conversation, but Josephine had remembered, and had gone through great lengths to present her with this little reminder. 

Ellana had thanked Josephine as best as she could, and yet still she remembers her Keeper chiding her - _Do not be so ungrateful, Da’len_. It was not only Josephine who, over the past few weeks, had plied her with these subtle attentions. Varric and his stories, Bull and his impromptu expeditions, Blackwall and the little carvings he left in her office. Even Vivienne had tried, in a fashion, and all they wrought was a feeling of guilt as Ellana heard how hollow her laughters still rings. She couldn’t bear to tell them that the only thing, _the only one_ who could make it all stop was the man who caused it in the first place, when he walked away and did not turn back. 

So she danced – her feet falling into familiar patterns and her mind humming the steps in time with the music, and when she closes her eyes, she can for a moment pretend that he is still here – That when the music ends, he will find her once again. 

When the music did end, she slowly opens her eyes – finding herself again in a forest of her own making. And across the room, she found the man with the wolf mask. 

For a split second, Ellana could feel something shift in the space between them, as if the vast hall of Skyhold was devoid of anything else but she and him - this strange man wearing the visage of the wolf god of betrayal. Ellana could feel the hairs on the back of her neck stirring, her steps slowing down as the people around her began to move also, exchanging partners for the new music starting to swell from above.

She kept her gaze trained across the room at the man - _the elf_ , she realized with an unexpected thrill as she saw his leaf-shaped ears - who is tall and impeccably dressed in dark greens and gold that bespoke of no clans or houses, hair crowned with a cascade of russet braids spilling down his broad shoulders. 

Masked as they all were, she had recognized each and every one of Briala’s newly appointed elven nobility during the ball – each a beacon in a sea of rounded ears. Most of them had moved with a certain degree of uneasiness akin to her own that first time in the winter palace. But the man in the wolf mask moved with such assurance, such an arrogance to his gait that she is immediately sure she have never seen him before – She would like to think that she’d remember someone like him. 

But who is he then, if not one of Briala’s? Or was he merely a late addition, come to Skyhold after the others had been introduced? Predator or quarry. Hunter and the hunted. _A wolf._

Ellana is suddenly conscious of her own mask, and found a dark chuckle within herself. So he is Fen’Harel, then? A city elf playing with Dalish legends, perhaps? One thinking he is untouched by Briala and the shems alike, seeking to banish both to take the prize for himself. It is an intriguing thought, and she supposes an Orlesian, who plays the game with their every breath, would have found the wolf god of betrayal to be a fine role model. 

_Predator or quarry?_

Ellana began to weave from partner to partner, letting herself be twirled closer and closer to the other end of the room where he dances – Hands and faces and shoulders all blurring together like trees and thickets between them and she could feel it, she is so close. 

And then the wolf caught her.


	3. Chapter 3

Ellana is no Orlesian debutante, grown and cultivated in the floors of masquerade balls. But during her time as the face of the Inquisition, she’d like to think that she’s had her fair share of dances ; Orlesians and their stilted poise and hands that barely touched hers, laidback Free Marchers, quick-footed Rivainis, the stumbling Fereldens - and yet nothing came close to what dancing with this man felt like. 

The moment he took, no, _claimed_ her hand, he had swept her flush against him – plush velvet and hard muscles against the crinkle of her veilfire silks. His hand on the small of her back splayed firmly in a clear show of dominance – the tips alternately pressing and ghosting over the exposed skin of her back as he began to lead her into the steps of the Orlesian tune. 

For a moment, Ellana felt almost lightheaded – The suddenness of their proximity making her feel all too much like her mask’s namesake, a halla caught by a pack of wolves. She looks up and saw the man’s full lips twist into a smirk and something snapped through the haze of her mind. 

The First of her clan she might not be any longer, but she is the _Inquisitor_ , not some girl with freshly painted vallaslins who would swoon at the hand of the first boy she meets at an Arlathven. She grits her teeth and straightens her back, drawing herself to her full height and tipping her chin the way Josephine had taught her. 

_Remember that the Inquisitor would lead in all things, Ellana._

The man seemed to instantly pick up the change in her posture, and out of all things, a smile began to spread across his lips. If his smirk had been mischievous, his smile was positively feral – it was a smile with edges that are too sharp and promised things that are too dark. And yet Ellana kept her gaze level to his - slowly sliding her hand down from his shoulder to rest firmly on the small of his back before smiling back. 

His smile, if possible, got even wider – and soon, the dance was more a battle of wills than anything else as they maneuvered and skirted around each other through its steps. They passed, or perhaps wrestled the lead between them every few beats, palms tangled together instead of the slight touches everyone around them shared, hips pressing against one another in a way that is surely, surely too vulgar for polite Orlesian society. She briefly wonders if people are noticing but she finds, with every step and every unexpected turn, that she does not really care. 

As the music around them crests, their steps too grew bolder – taking sharp turns and twirls that she thinks she could only keep up with due to her penchant for running across Thedas’s countryside. But the strange thing was, amidst the unfamiliar, glittering forest of Skyhold’s ball, in the arms of this unknown wolf, she found that she was _smiling_. Something that transforms into a small, unbidden laugh as he dips her whole body to the grand ending of the song – noses almost touching and breath mingling together and she realized that she has not been this close to anyone ever since - 

She ruthlessly cut through that particular train of thought, her smile melding back into an extension of her mask as they righted themselves – finding stolen glances and titters of conversations all around them - Like birds. _Do not let them bother you overmuch, Vhenan_ His voice came to her nevertheless, soft against the tips of her ears as she entered yet another strange ballroom. _They are not your prey nor your quarry. But always listen, because they are the sound of the forest itself. And a good hunter always knows her forest_

A part of her was secretly elated at her small act of defiance – a subtle show that here amidst the Frostback's ridges, they are in the Inquisition's domain, _her forest_ – where a Dalish elf could very well dance like she did during an Arlathven bonfire. Always send your messages small, and always keep them within their own borders. 

The music that now wafted around them was softer, slower – meant for dances where one pretends to look another in the eye - and she cursed herself when she realized that she is still in the stranger’s arms, lost in thought as she was. With the frantic energy of their dance ebbing away, she was suddenly very aware of the warm hand on her backside, of her own still placed firmly on his, and the glaring fact that she had not introduced herself properly – or at all. 

Josephine would be _so_ disappointed. 

She canted her head, catching the stranger’s eyes beneath his mask as she began to open her mouth for the usual pleasantries. Naturally, the wolf-masked stranger beat her to it. 

“Aneth Ara” 

She blinks, her mind warring between annoyance and amusement that this stranger – this Orlesian city elf - would assume to choose that exact greeting. _My safe place_. Her tongue remembers the greeting fondly, spoken amongst clanmates and during Arlathvens – safety in dark wilderness and the shadows of shem cities. And then fresher memories, blurred at the edges from her own effort of forgetting - _Aneth Ara, Ma Vhenan_

And yet, he had uttered the greeting perfectly – the syllables rolling gracefully where the human-reared tongue always stumbles. She itched to ask him outright, this stranger who wears the mask of the wolf god of betrayal and speaks her tongue with the grace of a Keeper. 

“Andaran Ati’shan, Mesere” she replies instead, her tone like silk over the steel gauntlets she’s throwing between them. His smile does not falter as he dips his head in acknowledgement, and for a moment she got the strange feeling that he was the one indulging her, and the annoyance that had flared when they first approached each other returned full force inside her. 

There is _something_ about this man, whoever he was, that slips between her mask and grated at her. At this juncture, every player in this new board she and Briala had set down is crucial, and the Dread Wolf take her if she doesn’t work out her strange discomfort before the ball draws to a close .By now, she is sure that he should have realized who she was – By process of elimination alone there was not a lot of elves even allowed in the dance floor, much less wearing the kind of finery that she has on. And if he is one of Briala’s, he would probably be well acquainted with the other members of their new retinue already. He was nothing like the other elven nobles, and the fact that she could not get any good read at all from him frustrated her - her instincts buzzing on the back of her head as she circles, circles around this strange beast. 

The slower pace of the dance meant that every movement was more nuanced and drawn out – and Ellana is now hyperaware about how very, very close they still are. This close, she could make out the individual tiny braids that apparently made out the mass of his russet hair, feel the hard planes of muscles beneath his velvet coat, and Creators - _what was she doing?_

Slowly, Ellana began to extricate herself from his hold – shifting her weight so they’ll achieve the more respectable distance the dance called for. To her surprise, the pressure on her back heightened ever so slightly, pushing her back against him. Beneath his wolf mask, the man smiles again – This time a languid baring of teeth that is utterly beautiful and terrifying at the same time. There was something possessive and primal in the way that he held her – as if he was marking her, and she shivered despite herself before shooting him a sharp look. 

If that’s how he’s going to play it. 

“So, Fen’Harel?” She kept her voice light, wrapping her almost-accusation in a teasing lilt that was purely Orlesian. Something seemed to shift in the stranger’s countenance as she uttered her question, and Ellana’s eyes narrowed ever slightly beneath her mask.

“It would seem so”

“I didn’t know stories of him are popular within City elves” 

“It’s a long story” The smile was back, and she realized that he was leading them closer and closer to the edge of the dance floor. 

“We have all the time in the world” She replied breathily despite her better judgement. 

“Perhaps somewhere quieter, then?”

Despite the knowledge of how safe Skyhold is, how she herself had supervised the guard placements and magical wards throughout its stone halls - Despite the fact that anything this man might try, she could very well burn him into nothingness with the magic running in her very veins, every instinct in her body went into high alert at his words. The forest around her suddenly felt strange and alien – the cacophony of whispers and lilting strings fading into the background as his hands pulled her even closer, closer. _This is dangerous_ , whispered the Ellana who traipsed the woods barefoot – who moved silently as not to let the wolf catch her scent. And yet…

“Lead the way then, Mesere”

He did not even wait for the song to finish. With a last flash of his wild smile, the man swept her out of the dance floor, pulling her gently towards the door she knew led to the gardens.

Heartbeat thrumming beneath her wrists, she followed him deeper into the forest.


End file.
